Less self-help than a lively and penetrating history of psychoanalysis.
An earnest attempt to expand psychoanalysis from an approach to mental illness to an explanation of the human condition.
Clinical psychologist Tallis writes that during the 1920s, Freud himself asserted that psychoanalysis was more than a medical specialty. He maintained that, besides treating psychiatric disorders, its ideas could “show how the mind functions, how minds relate to each other, and how minds operate within cultures. They can also…answer questions concerning ideal ways to live…that have been debated since ancient times.” Freud was more prescient than he realized. The 20th-century psychoanalytic doctrines of Freud, Jung, and others, which emphasize the recovery of unconscious memories and primitive desires, have proven to have few practical insights regarding the treatment of severe mental illnesses, but they remain a major influence in literature and the arts. Tallis works hard to give them the benefit of the doubt and shows equal confidence in the two other major psychoanalytic schools: the humanistic-existential, which stresses autonomy, authenticity, and achieving personal growth; and the cognitive-behavioral, which aims to correct harmful learning experiences and dysfunctional beliefs. In a dozen lucid chapters, the author discusses human needs (security, acceptance, identity, sex) and the consequences when they are not met (adversity, inferiority, narcissism). The result is less a work of philosophy than a vivid history of the psychoanalytic schools, their often equally colorful founders (“they tested their theories by experimenting with alternative lifestyles and altered states of consciousness; they followed their patients into madness; they were like explorers, venturing into the unknown. And inevitably, some of them paid a very high price”), and their conclusions. Many have proven useful; others owe more to fashion than efficacy. Although not averse to research and amenable to the insights of neuroscience, Tallis accepts the tenets of psychoanalysis, such as the malign effect of modern life on mental health.
Less self-help than a lively and penetrating history of psychoanalysis.Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5416-7303-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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